Boom Boom Geoffrion, the Richard Riot, and the Rangers

Welcome to another edition of Blueshirts Briefs, a series profiling individuals who worked a short shift for the New York Rangers.

Bernie “Boom Boom” Geoffrion built his Hall of Fame career skating for the Montreal Canadiens, but it was Emile Francis and the New York Rangers who gave him a shot to coach in the NHL.

Geoffrion, a Montreal native, likely would’ve spent his entire playing and coaching career with his hometown Canadiens had team owner David Molson been more forthright. Molson knew of Geoffrion’s desire to someday coach the Habs, so he and general manager Frank Selke convinced “Boom Boom” to retire from playing and go mentor the Quebec Aces, the Habs’ top farm team, with the promise he’d be promoted to Montreal’s bench boss.

Geoffrion obliged, retiring after the 1963-64 season at age 32 even though he was still a productive player, as evidenced by his 21 goals and 18 assists for 39 points in his final 55 games with Les Habitants. “Boom Boom” went to Quebec. However, after two years coaching the Aces, it was clear that Hall of Fame coach Toe Blake, fresh off his seventh Stanley Cup championship, wasn’t vacating Montreal’s bench anytime soon.

Infuriated, Geoffrion, a six-time Cup winner, and twice the NHL’s scoring champion jumped at the chance to play for the Rangers after Emile Francis took him in the NHL’s Waiver Draft in June 1966. “I wanted to prove I could still play,” Geoffrion told NHL.com. “The year (before I came) the Rangers did not make the playoffs. That season (1966-67) we did.”

“Boom Boom” notched 17 goals and 25 assists for 42 points in 58 games, and potted two more goals in four playoff matches for the Rangers. In two seasons on Broadway, Geoffrion played in 117 regular-season contests for the Blueshirts, recording 22 goals and 41 assists for 63 points and 53 penalty minutes.

However, injuries plagued him with each passing day and ultimately forced him to retire from playing for good. He then moved into a role he always coveted, that of an NHL head coach, first with the Rangers, then with the Atlanta Flames, and finally with the Canadiens.

His dream job. At last.

The Canadiens

Geoffrion got his nickname “Boom Boom” in the early 1950s from Montreal Star reporter Charlie Boire after witnessing the player popularize the slap shot.

In an interview with NHL.com, he recalled practicing his slapper at age 10 in a rink behind a church in his Montreal neighborhood. Geoffrion continued to use the slap shot through youth hockey and into the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, where he scored 106 goals in 70 games for Laval as a teenager.

Geoffrion made his Canadiens’ debut at age 19 late in the 1950-51 season when in 18 games, he notched eight goals and six assists for 14 points. The following season, he won the Calder Trophy after recording 30 markers and 24 helpers for 54 points and led the NHL with 10 power-play tallies.

In all, he spent 14 seasons with Montreal, notching 371 goals and 388 assist for 759 points. Twice he led the NHL in goals, power-play tallies, and points. He also was thrice the league’s leader in game-winning markers.

“Without a doubt, [the slap shot] turned some 20-goal scorers into 50-goal scorers,” Francis said. “(It was) an enormous addition to the player’s arsenal.”

Dollard St. Laurent, a longtime defenseman and teammate of Geoffrion’s, said: “He changed the game with the slap shot. Goalies were afraid to face him. He’s the reason why goalies started wearing masks.”

“Boom Boom’s” best season was 1960-61 when he scored 50 goals to become just the second player in NHL history to do so in a single season, matching the feat of his hockey idol and teammate, Maurice “The Rocket” Richard. Geoffrion also had a personal- and league-best 95 points in 1961, the second NHL scoring title of his career.

The scoring crown delighted the Habs’ faithful. His first one, in 1955, however, didn’t go over so well. That year, Richard was leading the league in scoring when on March 13 in a match in Boston against the Bruins, “The Rocket” and Hal Laycoe got into a stick-swinging bout. Both players landed lumber before officials intervened. As linesman Cliff Thompson tried to separate the players, Richard punched him in the face, causing his eye to bleed profusely.

NHL President Clarence Campbell suspended Richard for Montreal’s final three regular-season matches and the entire playoffs. Understand: Campbell was already unpopular in Quebec as many in the province believed he treated Francophone players unfairly. That Laycoe wasn’t disciplined for the wooden sword fight didn’t help Campbell’s popularity.

Montreal fans were enraged. To them, this was just another example of Campbell punishing a player for being a Francophone. To them, Richard’s actions not only were warranted given Laycoe’s behavior but also merely the result of the NHL’s violent nature. In other words, nothing extraordinary for the league at the time.

Campbell was unmoved. He upheld the suspension and even ignored warnings not to attend the Canadiens’ next game on March 17 at the Montreal Forum against the Detroit Red Wings. Sure enough, once fans spotted Campbell in the stands, they began pelting him with food, drinks, cigarettes and even tossed a tear bomb in his direction. Campbell responded by awarding a forfeit victory to Detroit.

Many in and around Montreal protested by breaking the windows of businesses and automobiles, as well as setting fires, and The Richard Riot was born.

The forfeit win gave the Red Wings a two-point lead over Montreal for first place, and that placed the onus on Geoffrion to pick up the scoring slack in Richard’s absence. The problem for “Boom Boom” was Habs fans wanted Richard to win the scoring crown. Although both players were born in Montreal, Richard had a ten-year head start on Geoffrion in forming a bond with fans.

Red Storey, a former referee, and long-time hockey commentator, once said of Richard that, in Quebec, “hockey was bigger than the Church, and Rocket Richard was bigger than the Pope.”

Sure enough, when Geoffrion recorded a goal and two assists in a 4-2 win over the Rangers at the Montreal Forum two nights later to capture the scoring crown with 75 points, one better than Richard’s total, Canadiens fans lustily booed.

To them, it didn’t matter that the two points pulled the Habs even with the Red Wings and set up a showdown for first place at Detroit’s Olympia Stadium on the season’s final day (Detroit won 6-0). To them, all that mattered was that the Art Ross should’ve been Richard’s. To them, Geoffrion stole the award.

“I can assure you that I had more heartbreak in winning the trophy than Richard had in missing it,” Geoffrion said. “The Rocket never held a grudge against me. It wasn’t my fault that Rocket got suspended.”

Canadiens fans got over it, eventually. A loss to the Red Wings in the Finals after beating the Bruins first didn’t expedite the process, but Geoffrion returned to the fans’ good graces shortly thereafter. Three-hundred-seventy-one goals and 759 points made it easier for even the most ardent Richard fans to relent.

The Rangers

The highlight of Geoffrion’s playing time for the Rangers came on November 12, 1966, when he returned to the Montreal Forum for the first time as an opposing player. If he needed any convincing that Habs’ fans were past his beating out Richard for the scoring title eleven years earlier, he got it in the form of a standing ovation from the crowd of some 15,000 fans.

Geoffrion led the Rangers that night with a goal and three assists to pace a 6-3 win, scoring on a third-period breakaway against former Blueshirts goaltender Lorne “Gump” Worsley.

“Boom Boom” played hard for the Rangers but battled injuries throughout his two seasons with them, missing time early in the 1966-67 season with a rib injury and an ulcer that returned late the following season and forced him to retire after playing just one game in the 1968 playoffs against the Chicago Black Hawks.

Geoffrion became the Rangers head coach prior to the 1968-69 season and led them to a 22-18-3 record through 43 matches. However, bleeding ulcers forced him to resign and Francis back to the bench. According to a 1979 story in the New York Times, half of Geoffrion’s stomach was removed before he agreed to coach the Blueshirts.

Atlanta, Montreal, and beyond

After taking three years off, Geoffrion returned behind the bench, this time for the Atlanta Flames. He coached Georgia’s NHL team for three seasons, compiling a 77-92-39 record before again having to resign because of bleeding ulcers.

He took four years off before accepting his dream job of coaching his hometown Canadiens prior to the 1979-80 season. But he lasted just 30 games (15-9-6) before the ulcers flared up again. Those were his final 30 matches as an NHL coach. He walked away from the job despite having two more years on his contract.

“Another guy would wait to get fired and wait to get paid,” he told reporters. “Not me. I figure I wouldn’t earn that money. I’m not a man like that. That’s it. Goodbye.”

Geoffrion’s ties to hockey following the Habs’ job was pretty much limited to watching his grandson, Danny, play for the Montreal Junior Canadiens. “Boom Boom” died on March 11, 2006, twenty-three days after his 75th birthday.